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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong
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Not all white names are made equal. You want a name that's associated with high status in the country in which you live.
In Germany being named Kevin is a low status signal. The same is true for most US names. Lower class people in Germany are more likely to give their children the name of US celebrities than German high class people.
I'm German and would agree. Kevin not only sounds low Status but is also a name for kids, so it's even handicapped in more than one respect.
I've thought about adopting "Aaron Alexander Grey", the middle name being my father's first name and Grey being an adaptation of my current last name that probably no one except Germans could really hope to pronounce correctly. Also I don't want to stay in Germany so Aaron Alexander Grey is more of an attempt at a name that I imagine may be overall an internationally well recieved name. Thoughts?
By the way if you're a German citizen you can't just change your name unless you provide a good reason... like having idiot parents who decided Adolf is a proper first name for their child (way after WW2 mind you). If ever, I'll probably change my name once I become a Swedish citizen where you can do that kind of thing. Being Swedish (at least by citizenship) is probably also a very good signal internationally speaking. Better than German for sure.
If you go to the ex-Eastern Block, you find German usually has the signal "awesome rich industrial powerhouse, want to imitate, the kind of capitalist overlord I would want to be become, bossing over everybody" and Swedish has the signal "pretty people with funny ideas like non-gendered kindergartens, lacking courage or else they would beat the shit out of immigrant rapists".
Basically in Eastern Europe German is the second most powerful signal after American, and since people tend to worship power it works...
Could very well be true. But it leaves open the curious question what on earth I would be looking for in the ex-eastern block ;)
Cheap talent mainly.